Shots fired in Munich mall - possibly several dead and injured

[mongers]

Will there ever come a point when for most progressive liberals, they'll eventually attribute the violence to a fundamental part of what is Islam?

I guess as soon as they forget that the 'insane acts of random violence' thing is a relatively recent phenomenon while Islam is over fifteen hundred years old. 

Are those insane, how random are they?

[Zanza]

How Germans handle terror
Pure reason

In the face of a rash of attacks, Germans are staying remarkably calm
Jul 30th 2016 | BERLIN | From the print edition

ASK some Germans how people should react to terrorism and most would probably agree with the historian Herfried Münkler that the best attitude is heroische Gelassenheit: heroic calmness. Let other countries declare wars on terrorism and near-permanent states of emergency, they say; Germany's dark history has taught it not to over-react. Sceptics used to reply that talk was cheap coming from Germany, which had been spared major incidents of the sort that have struck America, France, Turkey and other countries. That changed in the space of one week this month, when Germany suffered four very different attacks.

First, on July 18th, an Afghan refugee stabbed and axed four passengers on a train and another on a platform. Four days later a German teenager of Iranian descent went on a rampage in a shopping centre in Munich (pictured), injuring more than 30 people and killing nine before shooting himself. Two days after that, a Syrian refugee hacked a pregnant woman to death with a machete—"relationship troubles", the police said. Elsewhere that night another Syrian refugee tried to enter a concert with a backpack of explosives. When he was barred, he blew himself up, injuring 15 others.

Germans grew more jittery with each round of breaking news. There was a brief panic during the initial hours of the Munich rampage, as rumours spread on social media that three killers were on the loose rather than just one. Munich's 2,300 police were inundated with 4,300 emergency calls, almost all of them false.

But Munich quickly recovered its poise. Under the hashtag #OffeneTuer ("#OpenDoor"), residents offered to accommodate anyone stranded for the night by the lock-down. Munich's police spokesperson, Marcus da Gloria Martins, laboured tirelessly to sort fact from fiction. Mr da Gloria Martins, who wrote a thesis on crisis communication, ultimately became the country's hero of the week. On a television talk show, he appealed to the audience and media: "Give us the chance to report facts. Don't speculate, don't copy from each other." It was the biggest applause line of the night.

Most politicians heeded his advice, distinguishing carefully between the issues at play in different killings. The week's worst disaster, in Munich, had nothing to do with Islamism. The 18-year-old gunman, David Ali Sonboly, had been bullied and suffered from depression, and had prepared his rampage for a year. He had read "Why Kids Kill" by Peter Langman, an American expert on school shootings. In 2015 he visited Winnenden, a town in Germany where a school mass shooting took place in 2009. He executed his attack on the fifth anniversary of the massacre by Anders Breivik on the Norwegian island of Utoya.

Mr Sonboly's case opened many debates. He had played "Counter-Strike", a violent computer game also favoured by other shooters. Should such games be banned? The consensus seemed to be no; that would curtail liberty and be unfair on the majority of players who never become violent. Should Germany deploy its army in domestic emergencies such as this? Some, including Bavaria's interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said yes. Others pointed to Germany's Nazi-era history and remained wary.

Mr Sonboly had used a contraband Glock 17, the type of gun also preferred by the killers at Utoya and Winnenden. Should Germany's gun laws be tightened? No, the consensus suggested; Germany already has some of the strictest laws in the world. Mr Sonboly had bought his gun illegally from Slovakia through the "dark net", an encrypted portion of the internet. The weapon had been disabled for use as a stage prop; Mr Sonboly or someone else later restored it to shoot live rounds.

Public discussion of the other three attackers was equally mature. All were refugees from war-torn countries and probably traumatised. Two of them—the axeman on the train and the backpack bomber at the concert—acted in the name of Islamic State (IS). The former, an unaccompanied minor from Afghanistan, was only 17 years old. The latter, a Syrian nicknamed Rambo at his refugee centre, had been denied asylum and was to be deported to Bulgaria. He had already been in psychiatric treatment and twice tried to commit suicide.

Some worried that IS might have smuggled in terrorists amid the refugees who have arrived in Germany in recent years—about 1m last year alone. Germany is investigating 59 such cases, said Thomas de Maizière, the interior minister. (There are 708 other investigations into possible Islamist terrorist plots, involving more than 1,000 suspects.) But he cautioned that the vast majority of refugees are peaceful victims, rather than perpetrators, of terror. Most Germans agreed that refugees, especially the young and traumatised, should receive better counselling and supervision.

Only a few tried to make hay of the tragedies. During the Munich rampage, André Poggenburg, a leader of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party, tried to blame the open-door refugee policy of chancellor Angela Merkel—even before anyone knew who was shooting. "Our sympathy for the wounded and the bereaved, our disgust for the Merkelites and leftwing idiots who bear responsibility!" he tweeted. He earned immediate condemnation on social and broadcast media, followed by ridicule once it emerged that the shooter was German. Then the country went on being heroically calm.

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21702718-face-rash-attacks-germans-are-staying-remarkably-calm-pure-reason

[Solmyr]

So the Munich shooter was a right-wing racist. And people in the mall were protected against him by an Afghan refugee security guard.

But of course this is not terrorism, because only Muslims can be terrorists.

[derspiess]

Is anyone claiming this wasn't terrorism?

[The Brain]

Is anyone claiming this wasn't terrorism?

Solmyr.

[Sheilbh]

Is anyone claiming this wasn't terrorism?

I may be wrong, but from what I've read I don't think it's terrorism.

[Camerus]

Will there ever come a point when for most progressive liberals, they'll eventually attribute the violence to a fundamental part of what is Islam?

I guess as soon as they forget that the 'insane acts of random violence' thing is a relatively recent phenomenon while Islam is over fifteen hundred years old. 

Yeah, Mohammed never used an AK-47.

[Martim Silva]

Mr Sonboly had bought his gun illegally from Slovakia through the "dark net", an encrypted portion of the internet. The weapon had been disabled for use as a stage prop; Mr Sonboly or someone else later restored it to shoot live rounds.

Interesting.

The mainstream media may want to press the "oh he just reactivated it" fairytale to those that have no knowledge of guns, but I've seen how weapons are disabled. There is pretty much no chance of them being reactivated again.

I'm sure that people here who have handled/examined deactivated weapons can attest to this.

The only way it can possibly be done is to literally build anew (with professional tools) all the deactivated parts and replace them.

There is also precisely 0% chance of a 18-year-old like Ali David Sonboly being able to do it; or any normal adult, for that matter.

IF this report resembles the truth, the Glock 17 HAD to be restored by, quite literally, a weapons expert with access to specialized tools.

(it would also have been far more practical and possibly cheaper to just get a normal gun).

[grumbler]

Interesting.

The mainstream media may want to press the "oh he just reactivated it" fairytale to those that have no knowledge of guns, but I've seen how weapons are disabled. There is pretty much no chance of them being reactivated again.

I'm sure that people here who have handled/examined deactivated weapons can attest to this.

The only way it can possibly be done is to literally build anew (with professional tools) all the deactivated parts and replace them.

There is also precisely 0% chance of a 18-year-old like Ali David Sonboly being able to do it; or any normal adult, for that matter.

IF this report resembles the truth, the Glock 17 HAD to be restored by, quite literally, a weapons expert with access to specialized tools.

(it would also have been far more practical and possibly cheaper to just get a normal gun).

You have convinced me:  they have the wrong man and his gun could not possibly be the wrong murder weapon.

[Razgovory]

Gunna be honest here, I don't care for the BBC's new look.

[Martim Silva]

Just as an update, the German police has arrested the man that insulted the shooter, during their altercation that was filmed by everyone:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/696646/Thomas-Salbey-Munich-shooter-Ali-Sonboly-prosecution

http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article157477536/Anwohner-nach-Balkon-Wutrede-angezeigt.html

He is accused to have "insulted" the killer, which is bad for the memory of the dead, namely the attacker.

You can't make this shit up. The German police and Justice are certainly acting against the interests of the German public.

(and that after the Muslims that were detained for harassing women in Cologne during New Years Eve were allowed to go free, even though it was proved they were guilty)

[Zanza]

Some blogger filed a criminal complaint that alleged that the rant was before the murders and might have incited the perpetrator. It was not about insult, but about incitement.

The prosecutor had a look at the criminal complaint and dropped it as it was based on wrong facts. That's how rule of law here works.

He was of course not arrested.

You seem to have made up this shit after all.

[Sheilbh]

If he didn't the Express definitely did.

[mongers]

Some blogger filed a criminal complaint that alleged that the rant was before the murders and might have incited the perpetrator. It was not about insult, but about incitement.

The prosecutor had a look at the criminal complaint and dropped it as it was based on wrong facts. That's how rule of law here works.

He was of course not arrested.

You seem to have made up this shit after all.

My understanding was the guy was trying to distract the gun man, to allow time for others to escape/police arrive, any truth in that?

[grumbler]

If he didn't the Express definitely did.

Who besides Martim would be gullible enough to cite the Express as their news source?  Not even another British tabloid would take the word of the Express for anything.

Martim needs to go back to using ambassadors as his news sources.